oldtimer

With appetite whetted by the schools of thought on trail-braking, i am interested in re-learning how to steer.
In my 20's, equipped with a 356B S90 , I use to saw at the wheel into corners , didn't realise I was doing that till my wife started to copy me and I unwisely asked where she got that from (!!!)
Since then have tried to get steering input right first time, but increasingly coming across understeer that makes me tend to increase steering input through the turn from the original setting.
The thing that 'sawing' gave me was a feel for how much turn I was going to get , earlier in the turn rather than later.
Whats the advice ?

Geo

Oh boy, this should start a lively discussion.

BTW, is this with or without a friction circle plot?

I've never driven a 356, but I am of the school that says you should strive for "quiet hands" as my doctor would say. Your goal should be driving the line with minimal movement from your hands. Each saw at the wheel slows you down and reduces grip.

Renn 951

I would also add that if the car is understeering, the correct response is to open the steering back up slightly, which re-establishes the grip of the front tires. To continue to add more steering in response to an understeering car is self-defeating.

JC in NY

I think everyone should know the "textbook" way to steer, which is hands and 3 and 9, never move the hands from the wheel, plant the wheel in a smooth arc and hold it, etc. This is how it should be taught in a formal learning environment.

Once you master this, then move on to what works best for you. Pros use a myriad of sawing and shuffling techniques.

RedlineMan

Well, G is right in that...

This is yet another sticky wicket. There are many facets to this that need to be vetted.

There can be perfectly good reasons for making minute and even frequent adjustments to your steering angle. There are also bad ones. Sawing would be the term used to define a bad one.

Students are always told not to saw on the wheel because at the pace a novice will be driving at it will not serve any purpose. They are likely doing it out of a sense of false control or nervousness.

If you have a car with a less than optimal alignment, or you just love a loose car, you may find that the tail of the car is a bit too boisterous, and you will be constantly having to catch it. If you car plows, you might need to start with a very decisive turn in to pitch the tail, followed thereafter by a release of that steering angle to catch that pitch.

If you are driving a perfectly smooth surface, At a moderate-to-swift pace, you likely will not have significant variations in grip. However, if you are in a perfect fast drift, and if you are keenly aware of what your tires and suspension are doing, you will find that there are many moments where the slip angle or general grip of your tires has been exceeded, and corrections are called for. This is magnified if the track is bumpy.

I will say now that if you have your car on the limit, I mean REALLY on the limit, then some corrections WILL need to be made because staying on the much ballyhooed FC for more than an instant - steady state - is impossible... IN REALITY. If you don't need corrections, you aint at the limit!

Say you have a stiffly sprung car, are on a bumpy surface, and are also prone to driving on the FC... Oh damn... I said it again. Sorry. Anyway, you may find that you need to make minute adjustments frequently to keep the car flowing perfectly on its drift. I for instance have noted that my films of Mosport show quite a bit of "adjusting" going on, where Watkins Glen requires much less.

I am not sure when I started doing this, but it is indeed a response to the track surface, and what my tires need to maintain maximum grip through slip angle management. That's my story!

So, should novices do it? No. Does it have practical application? Yes.

M758

Agree alot with Redlineman on this one.

When I first leared to performance drive I wanted to keep the wheel a constant postion. It was much smoother. Now that I have learened to push the limits of my car and have achieved speeds I never thought possible I do tend to move the wheel quite a bit. These are all pretty minor movements, but in doing so I can make minor adjustments to correct for any under/oversteer issues I have at the very limit. If I am not at the limit I can have steady hands. Also the number of corrections and their speed is variable and dependant on the track conditions, corner, car balence, speed, etc.

Brian P

Are you still driving the 356? If so, you might want to track down some fellow 356 instructors and see what they do. I took a ride with a very good 356 driver and some of the things he was doing seemed opposite everything I was ever taught. It was an incredibly fun ride though.

Adam Richman

I think this sums it up for me as well. I think that if my hands are able to remain set and fixed, I am not going fast enough. I would also add that steering (and the not moving your hands on the wheel) is very much dependent on the car (and I think its a matter of personal taste as well). I know I move my hands on the wheel a good amount (in every car I have tracked).

smokey

FWIW, Karl Ludvigsen in "Excellence Was Expected" says that Huschke von Hanstein always "sawed" his way around corners with the 356 and its variants, perhaps because at the limit the swing axle gets rather nervous and unstable. I believe this was also the only way to drive the 550 really fast: catching the swing axle each time just before it let go completely. No personal experience whatsoever, aside from parking our '59 beetle in a ditch by overcorrecting when the swing axle jacked up. Many years ago. The Auto Union Grand Prix car had the same characteristic, and there was only one driver who could stay on the track with it, machismo and motorcycle experience overcoming poor engineering.

NetManiac

Well, being pretty novice at this I don't know that I have a lot of wisdom to offer. But I do know that at one point I was moving the wheel and my hands a LOT. When an instructor pointed this out and taught me to use a single input and to keep my hands at 9 & 3 for as long as possible my driving got way smoother (and of course lap times dropped). So my goal is to keep my hands in one place and use a single input. Doesn't always happen all the time. Either because I lose concentration and fall back on old habits, or because the car just needs some minor adjusting (as others have said). But in both cases there is much less movement than there used to be.

Geo

The goal of course is always to try to get through the corner and around the track as quickly as possible. The goal is not to not move the wheel. There will always be corrections to make and as John pointed out, the track surface will affect that greatly. But as you progress, the hands will get quieter and quieter.

Jack667

The Genesee Valley BMW Region brings in an instructor for their DE schools at Watkins Glen. I attended three or four of these and had the same instructor atleast twice. He is great for experienced drivers, giving a different perspective - often contrary to intuition or standard teaching. One issue he addresses is hand movements. He advocates a method with almost constant movement. Even - to the extreme - going down a straight. He says that, especially in turns, you should be moving the wheel back and forth, ever so slightly (note: not exactly sawing, but I thought I'd throw this into the discussion anyway). He uses the example of a tennis player waiting for a serve. He says that you would never see that person standing still. They usually plant their feet and rock back and forth, from left to right, waiting for the serve. This way, their muscles are already in motion and they will be able to react quicker when the serve comes. This is why you make small movements with the wheel - so that when you need to make a correction, you will be able to react in time to catch it. He also says that the minor movement will not even effect the path of the car. I always thought this was interesting, but I don't really do this too often...

smokey

It's interesting to watch the hands of Formula One drivers through the on-board cameras. They never seem to be still in the corners.

JCP911S

Lots of different stuff going on here.... the "proper" technique depends on the level of the student:

First the car is always most stable when held in a steady state (no sawing) right at the limit. That should be the goal. Howver Top guys take it PAST "the limit" with a small hand movements in toss and catch adjusting to minute changes in surface, slip angle, and dynamics... race tires generally work best with a small amout of sideslip (this does not mean hanging the tail out 15 degrees) .... BUT 99% of PCA DE students are not there yet...

Second, upon initial steering you have to take up the slack in the tires and suspension, then start rotating the car (feeding in slip angle as the car slows forward and accellerates lateraly), then hold at the apex then release.... in actuality, the wheel is almost always moving as you pull the car toward the apex, but DE studends must learn to "set ans hold" before they move to this level.

IF the car understeers once cause could be turning the wheel too quickly... fo course there are may others.

Third, there are three ways to move the wheel: stay at 9 and 3 (I call this "English" style), full shuffle steer (I call this "Italian" style), and keeping one had at 3 or 9 and moving the other to get more wheel rotation (I call this "Broken English"). Each style has different benefits and trade-offs.

The benefit of English is that your hands are always at the same position relative to the slip angle of the tires, so you develop a tremendous sense of "body image" with the car. "Body image" is the thing that allows you to touch your nose with your eyes closed. It is also the thing that allows you to catch the tail reflexively when it starts to slip.

The benefit if Italian is that your hands and arms are always at a physologically optimum position for maximum control.... that arms crossed Jimmy Clark style looks cool but you really don't have much control on the wheel.

Generally I recommend English for fast turns where car control is important, Italian for slow hairpins where alot of wheel movement is required, and "Broken English" for the middle.... all three work as long as you do it the same way in the same turn every lap.

Finally, keeping your wrists limber on the wheel is ok. IF you hold it in a death grip, you will not be smooth...This may look like sawing, but in fact you are just working the slack in the steering, letting the car find its own path....not really creating slip angle.... also, many racecars have alot of toe-out etc where they need minute correction to stay straight... this is totally different from "sawing" the wheel.

JackOlsen

There was a good article about this phenomenon recently in the New York Times -- explaining a little about 'body schema' and the way we create an awareness of the borders of our shape as it moves through space. This wouldn't be that surprising, except for our ability to change that 'shape' to include what we're wearing, touching... or driving.

The article explains some of the science behind the 'one with the automobile' feeling we get while driving, why it's so compelling, and also why we get angry so quickly if we're involved in a fender bender.

Here's one link to the article.

If that one doesn't work, here's another.